# Host a PDF
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/host-a-pdf/304495
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [April 18, 2024, 5:31pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/host-a-pdf/304495 "2024-04-18T17:31:54Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@anon82911141](https://meta.discourse.org/u/anon82911141)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2024, 5:31pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/host-a-pdf/304495/1 "2024-04-18T17:31:54Z")
Hi,
Is it possible to host a PDF on a Discourse instance? Meaning that you could go to [discourse.example.com/random-file.pdf](http://discourse.example.com/random-file.pdf) and you’d be able to access it from there.
Thanks!
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### Author:  [@maiki](https://meta.discourse.org/u/maiki)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2024, 5:46pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/host-a-pdf/304495/2 "2024-04-18T17:46:15Z")
If the instance allows for file uploads with the `.pdf` extension, it will look like this:
[oakland-sorting-guide.pdf](https://meta.discourse.org/uploads/short-url/fFzAd6DPI0srFmrNFXsFmW11BHr.pdf) (2.1 MB)
Does that answer your question? 🙂
* * *
Original link is [https://www.oaklandrecycles.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/oakland-sorting-guide.pdf](https://www.oaklandrecycles.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/oakland-sorting-guide.pdf), found at [Recycling - Oakland Recycles](https://www.oaklandrecycles.com/what-goes-where/recycling/).
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### Author:  [@anon82911141](https://meta.discourse.org/u/anon82911141)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2024, 6:11pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/host-a-pdf/304495/3 "2024-04-18T18:11:03Z")
Hi there,
I wanted it to be viewable on the domain - not downloadable, so that instead of downloading to the user’s device, they could view it online.
Is that possible?
Thanks!
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### Author:  [@JammyDodger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JammyDodger)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2024, 6:13pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/host-a-pdf/304495/4 "2024-04-18T18:13:36Z")
There’s the [Inline PDF Previews](https://meta.discourse.org/t/inline-pdf-previews/157649) theme component that might be of some use, or a plugin variation that allows PDFs to be opened in the browser [Discourse send PDF inline](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-send-pdf-inline/280875).
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### Author:  [@maiki](https://meta.discourse.org/u/maiki)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2024, 6:22pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/host-a-pdf/304495/5 "2024-04-18T18:22:32Z")
> [@anon82911141](#):
>
> I wanted it to be viewable on the domain - not downloadable, so that instead of downloading to the user’s device, they could view it online.
What you are describing is called “reading the PDF in the web browser”. The links JammyDodger shared will assist you to achieve that effect with Discourse.
However, the PDF files are still downloaded to the user’s device; it is cached in the browser as a downloaded resource being shown to the user.
I understand that some folks like offering the option to read in the browser, I know I’ve made use of this in policy-making instances where we had to read a lot of PDFs obtained from public data dumps.
A _separate_ concern is that large PDFs would take up too much for user devices, due to network or storage limitations; the way to address this issue is by creating smaller PDFs or making that information available as text in a topic. 👍
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### Author:  [@anon82911141](https://meta.discourse.org/u/anon82911141)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2024, 7:01pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/host-a-pdf/304495/6 "2024-04-18T19:01:34Z")
@JammyDodger @maiki Many thanks for your help - those are the solutions I wanted to achieve!
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### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2024, 7:02pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/host-a-pdf/304495/7 "2024-05-18T19:02:14Z")
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